"Ah, well!" he ended, with a sneer, "perhaps as the world views these
things there is a certain greatness in that--the greatness of the fox."
Naturally there was much in this upon which I needed explanation, and I
made bold to intrude upon his anger to crave it. And it was then that I
learnt the true position of affairs.
Between France and the Empire, the State of Milan had been in contention
until quite lately, when Henri II had abandoned it to Charles V. And in
the State of Milan were the States of Parma and Piacenza, which Pope Julius
II had wrested from it and incorporated in the domain of the Church. The
act, however, was unlawful, and although these States had ever since been
under Pontifical rule, it was to Milan that they belonged, though Milan
never yet had had the power to enforce her rights. She had that power at
last, now that the Emperor's rule there was a thing determined, and it was
in this moment that papal nepotism was to make a further alienation of them
by constituting them into a duchy for the Farnese bastard, Pier Luigi, who
was already Duke of Castro.
Under papal rule the nobles--more particularly the ghibellines--and the
lesser tyrants of the Val di Taro had suffered rudely, plundered by
Pontifical brigandage, enduring confiscations and extortions until they
were reduced to a miserable condition.
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